


My first and one true love

by orphan_account



Category: Beauty and the Beast (2017)
Genre: F/M, Identity, Loss, Love, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 07:12:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10566255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account





	

Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, there lived a young, handsome prince, who was kind-hearted and generous. He loved and was loved by a beautiful young girl.

One day, the prince was transformed into a hideous beast. How or why didn't matter, because an even greater misfortune followed. The young girl did not know him anymore. She grieved for the prince, thinking she had lost her true love, while he was still right next to her, disguised as a monster. He had lost both himself and the one he loved so dearly.

The prince tried, desperately, to bring an end to his sufferings. Nothing worked. She would not see him for who he truly was, and he could not turn back to his true form.

The story does not end there. Once upon another time, the prince became human again. Finding his own old self brought him great joy, but it was marred by the young girl's reaction. She still did not recognize him. Nevertheless, she grew to love the prince again, not like before, nothing close to that, because in her mind's eye, her first love was dead. The person she loved now was entirely new, completely different from the prince she had lost. Seeing how blind she was broke his heart, and the prince was never happy again. She noticed, but since she was not happy either, it didn't matter. They learned to be content with their lot, and lived together for the rest of their lives.

The moral of the story? The girl believed there were three different people in her life: the prince she loved unconditionally and lost so cruelly, the beast she could not love or understand, and the man who she settled for and eventually married. All the while her true love was by her side, loving her, enduring the pain caused by her ignorance. The spell she was under was far more lasting and did a lot more damage than his beastly shape.

This is my story. I was a prince and was transformed into a beast, and then I didn’t love myself anymore, because I didn’t recognize myself as the same person. I lost my true love. I grieve for myself while I am still here, but invisible to my own eyes. If I changed back into a prince, would I even know it? Would I even recognize myself as the same person?

Do you recognize your true love when you look in the mirror? Do you see yourself for who you are? Or do you see a beast that needs to be hidden, masked, preferably killed so that a prince or a princess may fall in love with you? Are you the same person you have always been, and love yourself as such? Or are you someone else, someone you don't know anymore?


End file.
